Chapter 4
Clare left Ethan plunked beside Karen’s six-year-old, absorbed in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, while his mother sat nearby finishing her online shopping. “Not a problem,” she had assured Clare. “Go. I’ve got him.”
Yesterday’s snow had left the trees and hills along the Northway as fresh and pristine as the cover of a Christmas card, and Clare would have enjoyed the rare chance to absorb the scenery as a passenger if she hadn’t been so worried about Tiny.
If she had met up with her husband, was she still there?
What if he had taken the baby and left Tiny behind?
And if they could find all the Marches together, would she and Yíxīn be able to convince Tiny to go with them?
Despite her robust assurances, she wasn’t so sure they were going to pull this off.
Russ had said, many times, that walking into a domestic fight was the most dangerous thing a cop could do.
The counterpoint to stealth and secrecy is bold action, her Search, Evade, Resist, Escape instructor said. No one’s ever moved their objective forward without taking bold action.
Okay, then. She always did best with jumping in feetfirst.
Off the state highway, the first mile was regular, two-lane pavement, but once they branched onto the northern road, it narrowed into little more than a one-car track.
It had been plowed, and the snow thrown up on either side and the heavy forest closing in gave an impression of a dark tunnel sloping upward through the mountain.
“Do you want me to take over driving?” Clare asked.
“No, it’s good practice. If I’m going to advance at the Albany office, I’m going to wind up traveling to places like this.” Yíxīn rolled her eyes. “Not going to lie, though, I’m definitely feeling even more motivated to get a job in DC.”
“Yeah, I thought I was going to go back to Virginia after a few years.”
“What happened?”
“What didn’t happen?” Clare laughed. “You know, when we get hired by the vestry of a church, we say we’re called. I was called to this place. I feel needed here. Not just by Russ and Ethan. This is where I’m supposed to be, and this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Chasing after Tiny March?”
Clare smiled. “Today, yeah. Other days it’s more meetings and fundraisers.” She glanced down at the GPS tracker on her phone. “Slow down, we’re close.”
Yíxīn went from a sedate thirty miles an hour to a near-walking pace. “I don’t see any sign of a car.”
“There.” Clare pointed ahead. “That break in the trees. It’s been plowed out.”
There was no indication if it was a driveway or another road, but it was wide enough for two vehicles to pass comfortably. Clare leaned forward. “Be ready to stop as soon as we see something.”
They crept along for a nerve-cracking half mile before she spotted, through the screen of trunks and bare boughs, an expanse of bright red that didn’t belong in nature.
“I think that’s a truck,” Clare said. Yíxīn braked.
Clare rolled down her window. A crow cawed, and somewhere beyond it, a redwing took up the warning, but otherwise, everything was still.
She nodded to Yíxīn. “Okay, let’s get closer. ”
The first thing she registered as they broke the cover of the trees was her car, sitting empty to one side of a small hunting shack.
On the other side, two trucks and two SUVs crowded together in a parking area twice the size of the building.
Each was nose out, ready to go, and had been brushed off since yesterday’s storm.
Like the drive they had just come up, the ground was cleared down to a layer of hardened snow.
“Oh, shit.” Yíxīn took a deep breath. “If I die in a redneck shoot-out, my parents will never forgive me.”
“No one’s come out yet.” Clare twisted in her seat to look behind her. “Circle around—slowly—and put us facing toward the road.”
Yíxīn did as Clare asked. Staring down the drive, she gripped the steering wheel. “Knowing they’re behind me isn’t making me feel any better.”
“Put it in park but keep it running.” Clare opened her door. “I’m going to see what’s up.”
“This seems like a really, really bad idea, Clare.”
Yeah, it does to me, too. Why wasn’t she at home with her little boy? Why was she still running off toward trouble without thinking things through?
Well, she was committed now. She shut the door and crunched toward the cabin.
No sound. No twitches from the curtains covering the windows.
She glanced up. The roof was bare except for a radio antenna.
Approaching the door, she could see each of the oversized vehicles were hitched to two-sled snowmobile trailers.
Enough to move sixteen men up and down the mountain.
She sucked in a lungful of cold air and rapped on the door.
Nothing.
Oh, damn. Maybe Cal had taken his wife and baby back to their home. Maybe they were heading to friends or family. Maybe Tiny was lying inside, cold and still, one of the over four hundred women killed each year by their husbands and lovers. Clare twisted the knob and shouldered the door open.
And almost ran into the woman she was looking for. “Oh!” Tiny’s hand covered her mouth. “It’s you!” She burst into tears. “I’m so sorry! I stole your car. I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m so sorry!”
It didn’t take more than a glance to see there were no other adults in the hunting shack.
One of the two camp beds pushed along the side walls held Rose, sprawled in boneless baby sleep, surrounded by diapers and clothing Clare recognized from her own home.
There was a milk crate and a collection of foodstuffs on a large wooden table; a few chairs and a kerosene heater took up the rest of the space.
A cable ran from the eaves down to a black box.
Clare stepped closer. PORTABLE REPEATER was helpfully embossed on its side.
The young woman was still weeping. “Oh, Tiny. Stop. It’s all right.
” Clare took her hands. “I’m not angry with you.
I was worried. I was afraid you might…” She was close enough to really see the other woman.
Tiny had bruises on her temple and jaw, and a red, raw strip around her neck. “Oh my God. What did he do to you?”
“He was so mad. He was mad I let you and that lawyer in, and mad I left the house, and mad I came here, but what was I supposed to do when he wasn’t home?” Tiny touched her neck. “He put me in a hold, you know, with his arm, and it was hard to breathe, and I was so scared…”
Clare hugged her. “I am so sorry. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, Tiny. No one does.”
“He called me awful names. He said I was stupid and useless…” She gulped back another sob and wiped her nose with the cuff of her flannel shirt. “Why would he do that if he loves me?”
“He wouldn’t. Would you say something like that to him?”
Tiny blinked. “Of course not.”
Clare took her hands. “Sometimes wanting to control someone, or wanting to own someone, looks like love. For a while. But it’s not real. It’s like the difference between a doll and a baby. You can cuddle and kiss a doll, but you’re not going to get anything back from it.”
Tiny turned toward her sleeping daughter. “I love him. And … he’s a good father.”
“Is he?” Clare let her skepticism show. “What will you do when he starts telling Rose she’s useless and stupid?
Is he going to show her a woman deserves respect and kindness and consideration?
Is that what she’s going to learn growing up watching you two together?
” She crossed to the cot and dropped down next to the sleeping baby, all fat pink cheeks and sweat-dampened curls.
“Tiny, when she brings home a boy just like Cal, what are you going to tell her?”
Tiny took a deep, shuddering breath. When she spoke, her voice was almost inaudible. “What am I going to do?”
“That’s up to you.”
She looked back toward Clare. “I thought you were here to, you know, rescue me.”
Clare shook her head. “I’m here to help you rescue yourself, Tiny. If you want to.”
“I’ve never had a job other than working as a cashier! I don’t have a place to live other’n our house! I don’t even have any money except what I took from your wallet! How am I supposed to rescue myself?”
Clare stood. “You walk out that door with me. And you make up your mind that you’re never, ever coming back.
Everything else, a job, a house, the money—all that you’ll work out.
It will be hard, but you’ll do it, for you and for Rose.
But this is the important part, Tiny. You can’t be running away like you were yesterday.
You need to be walking toward something. ”
Tiny rubbed at her face again. She looked at her sneakered feet for a moment, then nodded. “You know what? I’m real good with babies. I could get a job in a day care.”
Clare smiled a little. “I think that would be great.”
Tiny grabbed the diaper bag and began stuffing clothing and wipes inside. “Let’s get out of here before Cal comes back.”
Clare snapped back to her other purpose for being at the remote hunting shack. “Where is Cal?”
“I dunno. After we … fought, he just said he had to drop off something. He told me to stay put.” She rammed a container of Pampers in the bag. “But guess what? You’re not the boss of me anymore, Cal March.”
“Did he take a snowmobile? Or his truck?”
Tiny straightened. “His truck.”
“Okay.” Clare gestured toward the window. “Yíxīn—I mean, Joy, is waiting to hear from me. You get the baby bundled up while I go tell her what’s happening and then you and I can drive back together in my car.”
When Clare opened the passenger door, Yíxīn yelped. “Christ, you scared me! Don’t do that!” She twisted in her seat. “Where’s Tiny? What took you so long?”
“She’s packing up the baby. Look, you were right; this is some sort of communications center-slash-transportation depot. There’s a radio repeater inside and an antenna on the roof.”